Work Clean by Dan Charnas

All right, welcome to Productivity Book Group. I'm your host and facilitator, Ray Sidney-Smith. Thanks for listening in on Productivity Book Group's discussion of Work Clean: The Life-Changing Power of Mise en Place to Organize Your Life, Work, and Mind by Dan Charnas. If you have the paper book or the hardcover book, you may see it under the title of Everything in Its Place. So just in case anyone is confused, it goes by both names, Work Clean and Everything in Its Place. A little bit about the author and the book before we get started. I am pulling some of this from the Amazon author description as well as from his own website. But it says here, Dan Charnas, journalist, screenwriter, record producer, and teacher, was one of the first writers for The Source and helped create hip-hop journalism. Charnas holds a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. He writes about culture, race, and politics for a number of publications. He's an associate arts professor at the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music at New York University. And he's also the author of The Big Payback: The History of the Business of Hip-Hop. He's got a forthcoming book called Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm. And Tarnas has been actually also been a teacher of Kundalini Yoga for, uh, it says nearly a decade, but I think it's actually nearly two decades. He's certified by the Kundalini Research Institute, and he teaches classes in New York and contributes to yogajournal.com. A bit about the book from, again, the Amazon description, quoting, chefs across the globe have honed an incredible system for working with efficiency called mise en place. In Work Clean, Dan Charnas reveals how to use those principles in any kind of work outside the kitchen. Work Clean spells out the 10 major principles of mise en place, or putting in place, for chefs, and non-chefs alike. One by one, Charnas shows how applying each of these principles at the office and at home creates a simple system for organizing your life, work, and mind. And so with that out of the way, end quote, with that out of the way, let's get into what your initial thoughts were of Work Clean. What did you think of the book? What was your initial impression of Work Clean by Dan Charnas? Frank, you want to kick us off?

Oh yeah, this was my second reading of the book. Liked it the first time, loved it the second time. You know, I've kind of always thought that good cooks just have to be organized people by nature. You know, the end result, the goal, quote, in quotes, is, you know, that meal that's on the table and each part of the meal, you know, you have to start cooking it at the right time and so forth so that everything comes together at the end, and you have to have all your ingredients there, which means you had to have planned and you have to have gone to the grocery store at the right time to get the right stuff. It's like cooks, chefs are the ultimate organizers. So what better than a book written from the perspective of a chef?

I'll jump in here. It was, I think I had a general idea of what mise en place was about, before reading it. Um, and, um, yeah, the, the book basically lived up to everything I had kind of hoped it would be. Um, really instructive stories, uh, about, uh, the different, the different practices that are kind of— that are, that are part of mise en place. Um, and, um, the thing that really— I won't go too deep into it, but the thing that really struck me about it and made me, you know, just attracted me to it, is that the structure and order that it requires is like the exact thing that I, with, you know, kind of attention problems and all the commensurate kind of issues that go with it, just kind of need. And then it occurred to me that, you know, Frank, what you were talking about, being in the kitchen and having to make sure you have everything and do your prep, have the tools, figure out what needs to go in the oven at what time, what needs to go on the stove at what time. Right, which is something I really enjoy doing. Like at the holidays, like that's my— I do a lot of the cooking in the house and just like there's, there's all this stuff to kind of organize, but I love it, you know. That's like, I'm— and, um, I'm thinking like, okay, you know, chefs are— I think the chefs in general may be people, you know, or people who, who are attracted to kitchen work may— they require that kind of stimulation of that, of being in a kitchen and having a very specific thing you've got to get done. You've got to get, you know, or a series of things you've got to get done because you are on the clock and you gotta like, you know, you gotta— so I'll stop there, but I think everything about it was just fantastic.

So glad to hear, glad to hear. Anyone else? What was your, what was your kind of first largest impressions of the book? While you're all thinking, I will, I will throw in my thoughts here, which is that this is probably in my top 10 favorite productivity books. So it's not something I'm very biased because it's gone into rotation as one of my annual reads., and I am just really always pleased when I read it. And every time I read it, I think, oh man, I should have read this sooner to refresh me on all the things that I just enjoy about the book. One, it's actually well written, and, you know, just the book moves. You feel a sense of that from my perspective, and he puts in just enough story to create a narrative The book is organized well in terms of the flow of teaching. And if you don't want to like get into the pieces, you could just jump to Course 3, which the book is organized in 3 courses and 3 parts. And so, you have that opportunity to kind of jump to the end of the book and just read the how-to part and refresh yourself in terms of what he talks about in terms of the Daily Mes and those other pieces. We can get into that a little bit later in the discussion. But I really just always appreciate the book. I just, every time I sit down, I think, You know, this is a really well-organized, well-ordered narrative. And I appreciate the— I appreciate each of the things, even though I don't agree with all of the pieces of the system or the methodology. I'm not going to do all of them, but the pieces that I always lift from it resonates with me at the time. And no other book does that for me as well as, say, Getting Things Done by David Allen or even The Eighth Habit by Dr. Stephen Covey, which you all know I adore both of those books as well. And, you know, you step in that each of those books and they resonate with you at a different point in place in your own life. And I feel like this book does that same thing for me. It's— it gives me an opportunity to think and to reflect on the different parts of my system.

And Ray, one thing that I found for the person who may not be a chef, and I think for those who are chefs who really appreciate the art of cooking and they're good at it, there will be a lot of the book that resonates with them. Whereas those of us who are part of the cycle is the eating part of the cycle. That's where my strengths are. In the print version, you've got pages with gray borders and pages without gray borders. And if you just read the pages with the gray borders, that's all the stuff about how the analogy of how it applies to the world of work rather than here's all of the cooking stuff. And to me, one important part of the book was how it talks about just the way physical things are laid out. Sometimes you don't even have to put something on your to-do list because the physical object is the reminder. I see that when I go into Waffle House and I order my waffle and my side order of bacon, and the waitress says to the cook, Pull one bacon, and they pull raw bacon and lay it out. And so now to the cook, raw bacon laying over there means put that bacon on the grill. They don't exactly know who the bacon is for, but uncooked bacon laying there is the trigger to cook the bacon. And so many times in our world, just the physical thing laying out is the trigger to do whatever with that object?

So, Ray, I'll talk about my impression of the book. Go for it. I didn't hate it. Don't get the wrong impression from my hesitancy.

So, I— It's okay if you do. No, I don't at all.

Not at all. Not in any way, shape, or form. But I consider myself someone who loves to cook. I wouldn't consider myself a cook, and I'm definitely not a chef. I'm the antithesis of what this book is. So I never prepare, I don't plan. When I cook, it's like, oh, what's in the cupboard? And I throw it together and something magical happens. And I'm just lucky that way, or I don't know, I just— that's how I cook. So this is very interesting for me because I pretty much felt like not only I knew about mise because I've taken a baking class, and you can't bake like that, right? Baking is a totally different thing. You can't just play around, you've gotta science, not art. But yeah, it was really eye-opening for me as to how this could be helpful for me in the kitchen, but also in my life because I tend to just kind of work like that where it's— there's less prep and more like kind of random happening. But also my relationship with time is not accurate. So, for me, that was the one of the biggest things besides the spatial thing, the getting to understand how time works and understanding how chefs use time blocking to, you know, like really serious, like this is gonna take me 5 minutes, this is, and then I have to do this, you know, step by step. That was very helpful to me. So I really enjoyed the book, but I wanna say what you said about going to the third course. So I was getting so excited about the book about, I don't know, probably about halfway through, I was getting so excited. I just wanted to know, like, what's the system? I'm enjoying all these stories about chefs and what they do, but like, what's the system? So I jumped to the third course, and I think that's the first time I've ever done that in a book. I do not allow myself that. And it was very freeing. I was like, oh, I could go and read the end and then come back and finish the rest. And that's what I did. And I really, it made me enjoy the book more because I knew what I was heading towards. But yeah, so I'm finding it, um, I'm very excited to implement a lot of what's in this book.

So, well, unlike you, Linda, I immediately jumped to the end of the book after I read the table of contents the first time around, and I read that section first so that when I was reading through the narrative pieces, I felt more control over what was going on. And it was actually really helpful for me that first time around.

Yeah, and I think if you have a productivity system and you, you already you know, you're not a beginner at all this stuff, I think that's the way to read this book. Read the third course and then go and read the rest of it. Then you can enjoy it. Maybe, you know, other people might need a little bit more stepping in. But yeah, I think— but for me, it was hard because it was like, oh, you're reading out of order.

Right, right. Well, my perspective is that this is not a detective novel. I need to know what I'm going to be doing so that I can get— like, it's actually helpful for me to get kind of the latticework, the framework, so that I can then rest that part of my brain and actually just like enjoy the material. And this last time around, I actually listened to the audiobook while I was reading it, which was actually really interesting, kind of like to read the differences between the audiobook and the written version, which there was very limited, but it was still nice to be able to read and listen at the same time to kind of digest and also to see the the charts alongside the audiobook was also helpful as he was describing, as he was describing the method and talking about things, seeing the visuals and kind of dwelling on those was actually also really helpful as well. Any other initial thoughts? Go for it, Pietro. You're muted, Pietro. Go ahead and unmute yourself.

Okay.

Sorry about that.

I really enjoyed the book. I think a lot of people try to live by the adage, a place for everything and everything in its place. But a lot of people struggle. What struck me about this book is that it was talking about chefs and cooks being in their workplace and needing a system for organization, a system for a method, a system for a process. And yet, for those of us who have worked in offices, companies, private sector companies, public sector organizations, what do you notice about your coworkers when it comes to their habits around the kitchen or the kitchenette? They leave dirty coffee cups everywhere. But I know that these same people don't do that in their own homes. You know, I just know, you know, because I've been to some of my coworkers' residences, that they just keep their homes immaculate. So then that led me to think, what about people in professions who don't like to have everything in a neat order and don't like to to put things back. You know, I think about certain, certain very, very established professionals. Eddie Greenspan was Canada's most famous criminal defense lawyer. He died a number of years ago. If you know his name, it might be because he represented Conrad Black, who at one time owned the Chicago Sun-Times and had a trial in the US a number of years ago. Eddie Greenspan, before, before the very first day of the trial, he would lay everything out on his office floor, and he had a massive office. And that's what he needed to do, you know. Now, you might argue, well, he had everything laid out on the floor because he's thinking, you know, okay, I need these briefings here, I need these files here and so forth. But, you know, he could also, like, misplace— easily misplace something. But that's what he— Canada's most successful criminal defense lawyer. The only other thought I'm gonna offer is that while reading the book, I started thinking about how Maybe the environment can be too sterile when you're thinking about having everything ready, everything prepared. And so are chefs and cooks like— really good chefs and cooks like automatons? You know, they know exactly where everything is, right? They've laid write everything out beforehand. When they're studying at the Culinary Institute of America and then they do the externship, you know, they actually write out checklists, you know, and Dan Charnas recommends, you know, that they spend 30 minutes or— sorry, he writes that they spend 30 minutes a day doing that, you know, which is sort of like people who do a Getting Things Done daily review. But then he also writes that he knows that those students are going to stop doing that, you know, once they start working in the real world because they've been training it, you know. For example, Dwayne, Dwayne the Pluma's restaurant, which is affiliated. And that just led me to something else. These people are internalizing what they have to do. David Allen says You know, the mind is not a very good office. The mind is not for holding ideas, it's for having them.

Yeah, I think that there's a couple of things that come to mind related to your comments, Pietro, which is that, you know, I believe that most chefs do not do this. I would say most cooks do not do this. And the delineation that Charnas is trying to make between those is very important. And that, yes, there comes a point where there is an internalization of many of these pieces that it becomes a mental skill. Like when you go to law school, you're taught to think, you're taught to think logically. Medical school, you are given a body of knowledge to memorize and then to do a bit of detective work at the end, right? So it's like each of these professions has their skill sets. And to be a chef, to go from cook to chef, in, in Charnas's kind of thoughts here in these interviews, and he interviewed 100 different chefs, you know, the idea is, is that you go through this transformation, this maturation in the way in which you organize and manage this particular world. Daniel?

Yeah, so from my side, just first impression, because when you picked that book, Ray, I, I was like, oh, what I'm going to learn from chefs or cooks in terms of productivity? Because that wouldn't have been a book I normally pick For productivity. And I used to work as a waiter, uh, and so work very close, I think, with cooks, um, back then, back in the days in Germany. And for me, there was no system whatsoever. They just screamed all the time, were sweating all the time, and where it was just not a nice work environment. So when then, and then I read the book title and, and it says, okay, what we can learn from cooks in that case about productivity, I thought, I don't think there's anything I could have learned. And then I read that book and I have to say, as you said, it was very well written. I think that was obviously an absolute plus point, but also I did not know that first there is such a difference between chefs and cooks, but then also that whole productivity system they developed over time and had to develop over time to be such efficient cooks. And then also from a productivity standpoint, knowing how under so much pressure they can operate and produce consistent quality really got me— opened a whole new world to me. And I thought that was very interesting. Now, outside the productivity, obviously there are some gold nuggets in there, but just that idea that I did not think there is something to learn, and now all of a sudden I appreciate every plate which comes out of the restaurant 5 times more because there's so much thought behind the systems they use. From a productivity standpoint, which I didn't know before.

So for me, that was very— Right before the pandemic, I'd been in Paris and there was this little tiny kitchen in this little tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant. And this chef and he had a sous chef were making dishes for probably, I don't know, maybe 45, 50 tables in this restaurant. And I just remember seeing that. And I think I just read Work Clean for the first time. And I had that same sense of appreciation, Daniel, of the fact that this little tiny kitchen. I mean, like, they were crammed together. I thought, I would not want to ever work in this environment. And yet there was this kind of orchestral symphony-type movement between them. They were just moving in synchrony. They were just churning out plates of really high-quality food. And I was really— I, you know, I, I had that great appreciation for it at that moment.

You know, it's like, who to look at when you want to turn out high-quality consistently high-quality work. I mean, who's under more pressure than these top— I mean, I don't want to use the word Top Chef because that's now another thing, but chefs who are at that level where they are high quality all the time. They're not the line cooks who are just like, you know, don't have the training and just doing the best they can with what they've got. I mean, to be able to do that with, with something that's perishable this is a really good group of people to look at to translate to the less pressured world of, yeah, the paper is not going to disintegrate as I sit here. If I don't pick it up, right? It's going to take a lot more time than it will for the basil that you just chopped up, you know, which I don't know, like 3 seconds it turns ugly. So, but, you know, I mean, it's to me, I was amazed by I mean, I've eaten at CIA, so I know that experience, right, of eating this food that is prepared perfectly. And you wonder yourself, like, how do they do it? They're getting this stuff coming in and then they're just outputting it in a timely fashion. In most, you know, those top places, it's a timely fashion. It's not like you're waiting an hour or two for your food. So it's, it's a good group of people to look at.

I think what, Melinda, what you were saying there, it's really about what level of standard do we want to achieve, right? You can, and that's got to be, that's standards for service, that's standards for quality, that's standards for cost, all of those things. Go into saying like, okay, well, what kind of system do I need to be able to produce at this, at a certain level? And this is kind of it for producing very high quality output on Even, and to be honest, I did not really even, I'm on the, I got the audiobook. I'm on my second listen through of it. And I've just been trying to, I've just been like implementing little parts of it into, um, into my, into my workday. And, um, Yeah, I'm not sure that I'm going— the system itself, I actually— it's funny how you guys were saying like you went right to it. Um, I just kind of skipped that part. I listened to it, um, but I've just been looking at ways to integrate some of the, uh, the concepts into what I'm already doing.

Yeah, really. Oh, I was just gonna say, I really appreciate the way he organized this book too, because he highlighted the pages. You can't see with my bad light, but he highlighted the pages where there's actual things to do in each chapter, so you can go back after you read it without having to reread the book or search. I've read productivity books that were like— and I won't mention the names— where you're like, there is no way to find the information that you need to get this done because I cannot find it. Whereas he's got this very, you know, and it's laid out really well.

It's nicely done. Yeah, that's the other thing. So, there's only, I think, one other book that I put in that echelon. There's a couple of really well-laid-out books in the productivity world, but SuperBetter is probably one of those that stands out to me where Dr. Jane McGonigal has just, or whoever the book designer is, has laid it out in such a way that the information stands distinct so that you're able to go through the book like that. And Work Clean is another one where the details also match the analogy, like the theme. Everything just kind of fits, right? And you don't notice those details in normal everyday books until it's done so well. And you're like, oh, this is what every book should look like. It's kind of a work of art by itself. And I really appreciated that as well.

He's not trying to force the analogy there.

Actual.

It's not like he's trying, I gotta make 10, you know, there are 10 ingredients, but it isn't like he's trying to push for 10.

There were 10 things that, you know. Right, right, exactly. And so, I just wanted to run through those so that, you know, folks who may be listening later are not kind of taken off place. But mise en place, he talks about as having 10 major principles, the 10 ingredients of the methodology. And I'll run through them. We can talk about any one of those that you would like to. But he talks about the first is planning is prime. He then says, arranging spaces and perfecting movements. I really love the— there was one section in the book where he talks about the chef who talks about it's my space, my place, my pace, something like that. But it was just a really nice, interesting kind of flow of turn of phrase. And then number 3 is cleaning as you go. Number 4, making first moves and the importance of first moves. 5, finishing actions, that principle of completion. Number 6, slowing down to speed up. Number 7, call and call back, the importance of good communication. 8, open ears and eyes. 9, inspect and correct, almost a kaizen approach to it. And then number 10, total utilization. So those are the 10 principles of mise en place as he talks about it. And then the methodology and the system itself I found to be a lot more forgiving. There were major kind of chunks of how he described what you should do, but much of it gives you a lot of flexibility to be able to implement it in a way that you, uh, you have a lot of flexibility. There is basically my point. So, uh, where do you all want to dive in? What were the major pieces that kind of jumped out for you?

I want to dive into process and immersive, that whole thing, because I think that's really— for me was a real like Oh yeah, you can like get things started, and while the— those are going, you can do this, you know, so-called what we call what Ray people— not Ray— call deep work.

But you know, it's like, thank you for the clarification.

Yes, and I love that part where he talked about that. I was like, I thought about you the whole time I was reading that. But like this morning, I was making my avocado toast and my latte. And I was like, if you don't get that toast in now, this whole thing's gonna go wrong and you're gonna have cold coffee, right? So I— and I was like, I've done that before where I didn't get the toast in in time or the toaster didn't work or whatever. But like, I started thinking, yeah, you got to start thinking like this. What are the things you can do that you can set into motion that will be going while— like, laundry was a good one too. I love that. I was like, you know, You can put laundry in and it's going to be going while you can do other things. Or I'm sure there's lots of good examples, but I thought that— and raising process time up to its level of not degrading it because it's not quote unquote creative or whatever, and saying it's actually could possibly be more important because you're getting things going that you don't have to put energy into while, while you're able to do other stuff.

So I really like that. I won't get on a soapbox, but this is one of my problems with deep work and shallow work, right? Because, you know, if you think of process time and immersive time, the way that Charnas describes it, process time can be rather simple, easy to execute front-end items, and they save copious amounts of time and delay by virtue of doing those things. And so if you then presume that somehow deep work is more important work, then you're missing a huge element of how you can actually be productive in any given environment, especially a kitchen. But I mean, as Charnas has shown, this is widely and broadly applicable. And so, you know, I use the terms focus work and flow work for different purposes, but I feel like immersive and process time also fits into that perspective for me. Immersive work, I would pretty closely align with flow work for me, getting into the state of flow, whereas with focus work, those are a series of actions you've grouped together by context to do. And that by itself is not necessarily only process time because it could actually also be some other kinds of work that are solely your work that needs to be done. And if they're just administrative tasks or other kinds of tasks that need to be done, but I really appreciate that. And I, he adds meeting time as well. So he separates Meeting time, then immersive time, and then process time. So don't know that there are those three. And I also liked his simplification of it in some way, shape, or form. It doesn't appeal to me, but I like the fact that he says it's all actions. You know, don't try and like split it apart into separate things. They're all just actions, but you're now managing these blocks of time where you're getting these things done. I can appreciate that on that, on that level.

Yeah. Yeah. And the part where he talked about, you know, it's not about getting the most important thing done first and then the next most important thing. It's, it's just, it's getting things lined up so that you do have that flow and that one thing leads to the next and, and it just, it just works.

Yeah, but not the most important thing. The thing that needs to be done first isn't necessarily the most important thing. It's like your boss sends you an email, I need to talk to you, and you're like, but I have important, like, creative, immersive work to do, and I'll do all that, then I'll talk to my boss. And they're like, oh, that project I gave you that you just worked 2 hours on, you don't need to do, we cancel it. You know, that kind of thing. It's like, what needs to actually happen first for other things to work more smoothly or work at all?

Yeah, it's like doing this little thing then allows you to move to the next thing. And eventually something significant happens at the end.

And even if they're not sequential, there's that momentum thing. Getting a bunch of little tasks out of the way so that you can focus can sometimes just give you the momentum to keep going as opposed to like, oh yeah, I gotta, I gotta go remember to turn the toast on.

Yeah.

And see, and Linda, there are productivity books that would say, now doing all those little things, that's just a way of procrastinating and not doing that thing you really need to be doing. Well, you know, at some point, if you don't do the little things, you're not able to do the wonderful, you know, if you don't change the air filter, eventually you're calling the repairman because the air conditioner now no longer works. You know, who's going to empty the dishwasher? You know, if you don't empty it at some point, there are no more clean dishes. You know, what am I going to do now? So it's You know, oh, I only do the important work. No, it all needs to get done. Just figure out a way that makes it happen systematically where it's easy.

Yeah, life could be easier than we make it. I was thinking through as I was reading the book and he talked about the idea that he kind of stumbled upon this profession that has necessitated this this system, this methodology of mise en place, I started thinking of all of the other— and he lightly touched on it, like pilots, obviously they have a well-worn system of learning how to pilot, especially in emergencies. And so I was thinking like, there's probably a lot of other professions that have these, let's call them productivity methodologies. And now I'm like, I'm kind of hell-bent on finding all of them. You know, like, does waste management have their own productivity system? You know, because If you don't take waste out, it has the same problem as food. And so you'll know really quickly if the garbage or the toilet isn't draining properly. And so, you know, there must be these other kind of natural order systems that have developed over the years. And I'm really curious to see that. I mean, a few years ago, I went through all of the cultural kind of systems from Hygge, you know, in the kind of Nordics. And then, you know, we have What's the name of the Hawaiian— there's a Hawaiian productivity system. There's a bunch of different systems that are culturally specific. And I'm now curious about whether or not there are profession-specific ones as well that kind of match up with how mise en place has developed. I wanted to talk a little bit about total utilization because total utilization has this really interesting appeal to me, but it could also lead one to obsession. And so, you know, he talks about the idea that if you're, if a chef or cook is walking in one direction with some, you know, dishes to the sink, then they'd be walking, you know, by the fridge, make sure they pick up some of the items in the fridge on the way back to their chef station. And it's this idea that you want to be in continuous production when you are on. And that way you are, you're just fully utilizing, but also all of the resources involved, right? You, you're gonna use all of the parts of the meat you're using. You're gonna use all of the parts of the vegetables you're using. You're not gonna waste where you, where you don't need to waste. And I, I thought that's really great. And I, it's something that I think we can all appreciate within reason. But then, you know, there are folks who will then take that to the nth degree and they will, overworked, potentially burnout, and so on and so forth. So, I want anyone who may be thinking that, oh, total utilization means I should be working all the hours of my waking day and not resting, not rejuvenating, that is not what's being said here. And it's really important to kind of keep that in mind.

To me, it was more like work smarter, not harder. I mean, as far as the the using space. And, you know, you don't walk to the refrigerator 6 times to get 6 things. You take a tray and you put them all in there and you get them all over to your space. So, I mean, I think it's not about working harder, it's about being smarter about it.

And I'm sure these things develop for chefs over time, um, you know, and because they're always pressured with getting the meal out as quickly as possible, but a high-quality meal. You know, nobody wants to go, well, yeah, I know the food's really good here, but gosh, you had to wait for 3 hours. You know, you can't sustain a business like that. So they're always under the gun to get it done as quickly as they can, but high quality. So you just start developing these routines over time, you know, so that when you go to the refrigerator, you're getting like all the refrigerator stuff and you And you have as many things going on, you know, this, we get this cooking so that now I can go over here. And so it's sort of like the ultimate multitasking, good, the good kind of multitasking where a number of things are in motion at the same time and they make it look easy, you know, like the juggler.

They all have to have it out at the same time too. You don't want your dish coming 5 seconds or 5 minutes after your friend next to you's dish. And that's— so it's like you had, you have 6 managers and you have to get their 6 projects to those managers all on the same day. Can you imagine? Like same hour. And they're doing that constantly. So that's, it's, to me, it's amazing. I mean, it's nice to see behind the scenes of what creates that because for me it was always a mystery.

Getting those start times coordinated. Um, because, oh, I'll save a little time. I'll just go ahead and throw this on and then, well, it's done too early and Yeah, it's just, it's, you know, might be worse than having it too late.

But it's really knowing your work. And I think for me, that was one of the things. It's like, I don't really know. I don't know how long that time things take. So I can't really make an estimate. So I can't really schedule things out because I'm not aware of that. So until you really know your work and you're really being where he has you do that thing where you write down how long, you know, to log your time to see how long it takes to do different things. And I thought that was really interesting because that's something for me, it's like, oh yeah, I'd love to make a plan, but what am I basing that plan on? A really warped sense of time, you know. I can get anywhere in 15— well, I live in Southern California, I can get anywhere in 30 minutes, right? Um, nowhere 50 minutes, 15 minutes. And, and it's not real, you know. It takes 5 minutes to get some places and 45 minutes to an hour to get to others. But it's that weird warped sense of, yeah, this is only going to take me— people say that, oh, it's going to take me a few seconds, and I don't know anything that takes a few seconds.

I'm breathing. Yeah, um, that's kind of sensitivity to time, you know, how long things take, and, um, just not not allowing yourself to just get lost in whatever you're doing. You know, I just, you know, when I get into something, it's, you know, you just lose track of time. I mean, they call it like time blindness, is like one term for it. And I think there's a— I would be really interested to know any other people's like ideas about how that they, like, you know, work with time, um, you know, and increase their time sensitivity. I mean, obviously there's the— I mean, the things that I've done are— have certainly helped, you know, using a time tracker, using Toggl to track my time, and, um, setting alarms and doing all that that stuff, but like really being like committed and disciplined to being like, this is the amount of time I'm putting in, I'm going to give this thing, I can only give this thing this amount of time today.

And, you know, is something that I, I'm not quite there yet, So I think something, something to keep in mind. I mean, in my very early days of work, I kept a spreadsheet and kept that time in the spreadsheet, and I tracked very, very diligently every day. One, because I had to. I mean, it was part of my job. But then, you know, a little bit obsessive compulsively, I kept it beyond that time because I wanted to know. I wanted to really know how much time things took me to do. And one thing that I realized was that things always took me longer to start with than I thought I would do. And, and I always wanted them to be done faster than I had done them. And, and that's because over time, you know, we've just learned through several studies that the younger brain has more impulsivity. And so therefore, time is distorted. We get to kind of middle age-ish. And those center years before we get into more older years and we have a less distorted sense of time. And then that time gets a little bit more distorted as we get to the end of our golden years, so to speak. And so, like, at different times in your life, time moves differently, right? Like, your brain just thinks of time differently. So in this particular period of time in your life, you need to figure out what time means to you and is that a resource that is physical and tangible or is it something that is a flow of something, right? We're talking about sequencing just before, the thing about project and task sequencing. If time, the individual units of minutes and hours don't really matter so much to you, but more the blocks of work that need to get done, then it doesn't really matter for you to worry about the incremental time moving forward. More the outcomes of those particular goals. And people are different about those things. And I have to decide that I'm a minutes and hours counter. Like, I, during my weekly review, I have to set up my unschedule, see how much time I have available to me. I need to master how much time I've budgeted to things and then to manifest those at the end of the day to know that I've been quote unquote successful in my own day. For other folks, it's like I've got 2 projects that I want to accomplish today. They accomplish them and they're happy with their life. Totally cool. Totally comfortable with that being your definition of success. It's not mine and that's not my life to live. So why should I— why should it matter to me, right? And so that I think is the piece that I think a lot of people miss. I know that also what Charnas is saying about tracking your time is good for both of those people though. The people who don't care about the time signature, right? The seconds and minutes and hours passing by still need to know how much time things take so they're even able to think, okay, well, I may not be able to get 3 projects done today, but I could get 2 projects done today in this— in the grand scheme of things. I have 2 blocks in my day that I know I'm going to really be able to concentrate on things and I'll be able to get those things done. And it's kind of like 2 services, you know, in a restaurant, right? Like I could do 2 services in a day, great. That's what time we block for it. And let's, let's sequence all of the tasks to make that thing happen. And I feel like that's really important for people to kind of dwell on.

I think there's a third group of people that you left out, right? And that's the group who don't have a clue. It's not that they don't care and they can just do it. It's that, like, for me, I plan my week and I always overplan. Like, there's no way I could do all the projects I put on my plate for a week. And I do it over and over like the insane definition, thinking that it's going to get me a different outcome. And I continue to do it because I still do not get how long it actually takes. And that it's not so much how much time the things take, is it putting in the buffer time. Like if I go to plan out, like if I go to unschedule, I'm jamming myself packed full, which is not going to happen. It's unrealistic because for me, energy is more of an issue than time. Like, I have time. It's that I don't have the energy to necessarily do everything I think I should be able to. When I was 21, I could do the— I could do the amount of work that in my mind I think I can do now. And, and I only did it for 3 years, and then I was crashed because it was like, you know, nonstop working. From dusk to dawn or past, past, way past. And, um, but see, I still have that idea of like, oh, you know, so overpacking and not having— so I think there's a group of people who just don't get like the reality of the situation is. And so there needs to be some kind of way of figuring that out. And I'm hoping that this book's going to help me do that because, because I wish I could be that person who says, oh yeah, I don't care what time it is, I have 2 projects to do and I'll do them and they get done. Or even be like you and be like Yeah, I'm gonna count the time and it's gonna work. But no matter how many times I've tried different things, it's not changing the reality of that I overstuff my schedule. And that leads to overwhelm. And then, you know how much gets done when you're like, oh God, I have all this to do. You know?

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Deer in headlights. And calculating, yeah. And calculating buffer time, for example, is something that I've done for years and years.. And the more I accurately predict buffer time, the less likely I am to have a car crash on the superhighway of my task lists, right? And it's inevitable. If I have the right amount of downtime in my day, then I know that when I speed up, when I accelerate to where I need to be to get all the things done, then cars are going by, everything's happening. You know, the moment I don't have enough buffer time is the moment I lose concentration and then there's a car wreck, right? And it's like, man, how did that happen? And it's inevitable that the thing that I find is that I didn't have enough time to switch between tasks appropriately, right? That concept of, you know, choosing to kind of segue from one project to the next. And so you just aren't paying attention, lower quality, all those things, or you get overwhelmed and you're like, you know, like, I don't want to do any of these things now on my list that are in front of me. I could do all of them. I just don't want to. And you feel that sense of apathy or immediate contradictory kind of like anti-authoritarian perspective where you're like, no, and you rebel. And of course, the answer, the antidote that Charnas talks about in Work Clean, of course, is motion. Just getting into action is better than inaction. And that definitely has helped me over the years is just knowing that, yeah, I know I don't want to do any of these things, but if I do any of these things, it'll be better than doing none of these things and sitting here and, you know, moping. So it's been, it's been useful for me in that sense as well. Any other parts of the principles you want to talk about?

Well, just what you're just talking about, that he has in there a checklist for transitioning to, to like clear your space. And I really, I was like, that's really cool because then it builds in that buffer time of transition.

Yeah, I like the fact that he was like, have a spray bottle and a cloth to clean spaces. And it doesn't have to actually be like, you're not actually cleaning for sanitary purposes, but it's like that physical representation of the fact that you're always cleaning, but you're transitioning between pieces of your work or your day.

Right.

You're physically wiping your physical space has the same like Yeah, actually closing windows that you don't need for the next meeting on your computer.

I like that. It's easier to find the windows you do need. You know, you need those 3 or 4 open, so close the other 17.

That was the one spot in the book where I was like, oh, I do that. It was the one thing I was like, okay, yes, I am so clean about that. I mean, if you have more than one tab open, I'm like, what's wrong with you? Why do you have another tab open?

I'm very anal about that, but everything else, no. Oh, I always have dozens of tabs open. And I, in my closing routine at the end of the day, my Workday routine is to basically take any ones that I need and bookmark them and then close them out. And I reuse tabs. And so I will frequently go through the history of my browser to make sure that I I haven't overridden something that I do need for the future, you know, just research, that kind of thing. And many times I've come across, you know, some resource that I know in the future a client will need or a colleague will ask me about. And so I'll save those things for future reference. And I don't particularly have time during the day to deal with those things. And this book always encourages me to maybe make that time when I'm transitioning. And so I'm going to try that a little bit coming out of this is to see if, if if it actually does save me time and energy because really the, the review process at the end of my day is helpful for me to remember the various resources that I've come across in my day. And I feel like if I clean it at that moment, then it's, it's gone. Like I won't remember that I had it. And yeah, I could search Evernote because that's where everything goes. But, you know, like I can't always depend upon the hierarchy and even search to find everything that I touched just in a random moment, you know, in my day thinking, oh yeah, you know what, my— this person may need this at some point. You know, that, that potentiality doesn't like dwell on my brain, right? It's just, yeah, it's possible that something that will be useful. And these apps today, you know, and resources, they all have these crazy names. And so, you know, I have no idea how to find something after the fact without having to type all of the code, all of the keywords and tagging it appropriately. And I know I won't do that if I do that in the moment. But if I do that during my workday closing routine, then I'll spend the time to say, okay, I better put these terms in it because then when I go to search for it later, I'll actually find it as opposed to some gobbledygook name that doesn't mean anything. And of course, they haven't done proper keyword indexing for their website. So when the bookmark gets captured, it doesn't have the right description. And, you know, those images don't tell me anything either because sometimes, you know, Evernote will capture like, and display an image that has nothing to do with the actual website itself. It's like some icon on the page that it picks up. So I'm always like, no, no, no, I want, I want to, I want to control that piece so that I am able to find it well in the future.

Yeah, very great, great point. And in the past, I think kind of like Linda, over time we've sort of learned missed opportunities. I'm going to say that loosely. So one of the things I've gotten better at doing recently is to keep stickies open, at least one sticky open on the— well, I have an Apple computer, so keep it open on the desktop. And as these side extraneous thoughts come to mind, just jot it down as a placeholder so I don't forget. And then by the end of the day, you know, or when there's a break in my schedule, then I go back and look at those and then finish tying up the loose ends. 'Cause otherwise what I find is if I go tie up the loose ends right then, either put it on another action list or bookmark it or whatever, then I'm off on a rabbit trail and then it's harder to get back.

So that has worked for me. Just wanted to share that. Yeah, the little Evernote helper on Windows, Ctrl+Alt+H. Oh my gosh, it's like the digital equivalent of the memo pad by the phone. A thought occurs, just hit that, type it in, click somewhere, it goes away and it holds it. And then, you know, later in the day, look at all those thoughts and put them where they need to go.

Yeah, something, something also that comes to mind there is it's a good metric to see what you capture, like what you were just talking about, Usha, and what you're talking about, Frank, is that if you see yourself capturing and you're not able to basically deal with the clarifying and organizing a la GTD, but really, you know, like processing those items into something meaningful, then there may be some overcapturing involved. There may just be not enough clarifying and organizing time. Like it tells us a lot when you start to see things overflowing that where's the hiccup in the system? Are you— is there a diligence issue where you do need to spend some more time focused on the organization of your system? And that's a daily thing, not a not a weekly thing perhaps, so that you can do that in piecemeal and therefore have less overwhelm when it comes to dealing with those pieces. But it could also be that just it's a busy period of time and there's just going to be stuff that is a little bit more chaotic. And I like that about the book, you know, where he talks about the idea that chefs are in a chaotic environment and they're doing this work so that when they're in the chaotic environment, they have some semblance of control over their environment, so they're able to put out high-quality work. And that definitely, like, makes me think of my own days where, you know, clients are calling and emailing and things are going on, and those can be very stressful for me. But I know that I've set the stage. I've kind of— I've put everything in its place so that I'm able to make sure that I'm still being productive, withstanding all of the potential chaos around me. All right, we are running out of time. And so I wanted to just see if anybody had any final thoughts before we closed out. And I'd be curious in the chat if you want to put whether or not you would recommend the book or not. And so go ahead and throw in the chat if you'd recommend the book or not. And anyone with any final thoughts, major questions, burning desires? No?

Good.

Wonderful. We've got several Highly recommend. One of the best books you've read lately. That's great, Usha. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. I'm so glad everybody enjoyed this book, and I really, I recommend it highly. Like I said, it's in my, it's in my top 10 now, and I really appreciate the book and everything else like that. And so with that, we have reached the end of our conversation today. All right. As I noted, we have reached the end of this book discussion of Work Clean: The Life-Changing Power of Mise en Place to Organize Your Life Work and Mind by Dan Charnas. A few comments and announcements before we end this episode. So here we go. First, we host quarterly live discussions of personal productivity books, just like the one we just discussed. And of course, you are invited. Simply head over to productivitybookgroup.org and visit the upcoming books page for full details. We have a Google Calendar there. You can automatically have the events added to your calendar when we publish them there on productivitybookgroup.org.. You'll also find all of our past book discussions, our review episodes, author interviews, all under the Episodes tab. So just click on Episodes and you'll find those, especially if you can't find it in a podcast app of your choice. If you can't find episodes, just go to the website and you'll see them under Episodes. You can review them and listen back to them. If you'd like to subscribe to the podcast, go to productivitybookgroup.org and click on the Subscribe tab and you'll find instructions to go ahead and follow, subscribe, to the podcast for free, and then you'll get new episodes that we'll publish when we publish them inside your podcast app. And then finally, we have a digital community that is dedicated to Productivity Book Group inside of the larger productivity community, Personal Productivity Club. So if you go to productivitybookgroup.org/community, you'll be taken to the digital community to sign up and then into the Productivity Book Group group. And you can access it via the web. There's an Android and iOS app available as well. So you can go ahead and interact and talk about, you know, really any personal productivity books that you're currently reading, but of course, the books that we're discussing, reviewing, and so on and so forth as well. And with that, I want to thank everyone for listening to us here on Productivity Book Group. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. Here's to your productive life.